The
private rights and interests created, regulated, or protected by
the particular State, are created, regulated, or protected by the
United States, as much and as plenarily as if done by the General
government, and the State laws creating, regulating, or protecting
them can be abrogated by no power known to the constitution, but
either the State itself, or the United States in convention legally
assembled. If this were what is meant by the States that have
seceded, or professed to secede, remaining States in the Union,
they would, indeed, be States still in the Union, notwithstanding
secession and the government would be right in saying that no
State can secede. But this is not what is meant, at least not
all that is meant. It is meant not only that the private rights
of citizens and corporations remain, but the citizens retain all
the public rights of the State, that is, the right to
representation in Congress and in the electoral college, and the
right to sit in the convention, which is not true.
But the correction of the misapprehension that the private rights
and interests are lost by the lapse of the State may remove the
graver prejudices against the doctrine of State suicide, and
dispose loyal and honest Union men to bear the reasons by which
it is supported, and which nobody has refuted or can refute on
constitutional grounds.
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